Farming`s Future Lies In Genes

Biotechnology Seen Controlling Pests, Cutting Costs

May 23, 1989|By George Gunset.

Out of 11 million acres of corn planted in Illinois this spring, one acre near Illiopolis will be devoted to plants grown for the promise of biologically controlling crop pests in future harvests and reducing costs for farmers.

The acre is on a farm owned by DeKalb-Pfizer Genetics between Springfield and Decatur. A genetically engineered invention that enables the corn plant to grow its own insecticide is being tested there by Crop Genetics International Corp.

It is but one example of the biotechnology revolution that promises to change American agriculture as much in the 21st Century as farm mechanization, hybrid crops, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides have in the 20th. The promise for the future is a cleaner environment as agricultural chemicals are gradually replaced, lower costs and more reliable harvests for farmers, and tastier and more nutritious foods for consumers.

All that promise, however, won`t be fulfilled overnight and the path will be tortuous. A partial list of hurdles to be faced includes large capital requirements, a federal regulatory maze, worries by small farmers about the economic disadvantages, strident activist opposition and public concern about safety of genetically engineered products.

``Any biotech product will have to provide significant economic benefit to somebody and be accepted by consumers and the public,`` Marvin Hayenga, professor of economics at Iowa State University, said last week at a Chicago conference, a meeting of the Industrial Biotechnology Association.

Consumer acceptance of such crops and economic concerns are worrisome to farmers, said A. Ann Sorensen, assistant director of the natural and environmental resources division of the American Farm Bureau. Farmers are asking such questions as:

Will biotechnology products be affordable? Will they drive small farmers out of business? How can we make sure small farmers have an equal opportunity to use new products?

``Most of our members are optimistic about prices,`` she said. ``They are not quite as convinced that biotechnology products will be scale neutral,``

that is whether they will provide the same benefits for large, medium or small farm operations.

``We in the industry need to accept that we are vulnerable,`` said Allan J. Dines, president of the Wisconsin Biotechnology Association. ``We tinker, if you will, with genes, with the food supply, with ecology. To most people, this comes close to the essence of life.``

Seeds with insect, virus and herbicide resistance are rapidly coming of age, said John Hebblethwaite, Monsanto Agricultural Co.`s director of commercial development for plant sciences. ``Products of these technologies are on a commercialization path, with the first seed sales expected from 1993 to 1995 in crops as important as soybeans, cotton and canola,`` he said.

The potential for biotechnology to reduce chemical use and provide farmers with cost-effective alternatives is illustrated clearly in the area of insect resistance, he said.

Insect resistance for corn is the focus for the experimental acre at Illiopolis. Crop Genetics is testing a laboratory method of innoculating corn seeds of several DeKalb varieties with its bioinsecticide, aimed specifically at the pest, the corn borer.

Crop Genetics scientists removed certain genes from a single-cell soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, that produces a protein deadly to the corn borer. The genes were spliced into endophytes, micro-organisms that can live only inside plants.

The endophyte used occurs naturally in Bermuda grass, but not in corn. The scientists said they found they could colonize the corn crop with no harmful consequences. When the borer eats the plant, the protein acts as a toxin by causing stomach cells to rupture, making it unable to digest food.

Monsanto is transferring a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis to crops such as cotton. This gene produces a protein disruptive to the digestive tract of caterpillars, but safe to humans, animals, bird and crop-beneficial insects, Hebblethwaite said.

``Cotton resistance to these pests will result in a major reduction in use of insecticides, as well as fuel,`` he said.

Of the $150 million spent for insecticides for cotton in the U.S., caterpillar control accounts for 60 percent, he noted. Farmers in the South spray up to four to six times annually to control bollworms and budworms at an average cost of $35 an acre.

In addition, crop resistance would mean fewer passes over fields with heavy equipment, which would reduce substantially soil compaction and the need for fuel-consuming deep tillage, he said. Unlike chemical treatments, this biotechnology would neither require major capital investment nor significant additional cost of goods because the trait is carried in the seed from one generation to the next, he said.